


Days 3 & 4: Drunk Shenanigans & Consulting Boyfriends

by likethedirection



Series: Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge 2016 [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Divergence - His Last Vow, Implied Dark Sherlock, M/M, Narrative Flashbacks, Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge, consulting boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7507063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethedirection/pseuds/likethedirection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock does not know how long they have been spinning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days 3 & 4: Drunk Shenanigans & Consulting Boyfriends

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahaha I'm already behind but oh well. Written for the [Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge](http://sincerelyjimlock.tumblr.com/post/146926763135/sheriarty-30-day-challenge) on Tumblr. :)

Sherlock does not know how long they have been spinning. He thinks they are the ones spinning. He is fairly certain even the rooftop deck of the most expensive hotel suite in London would not come equipped with a rotational mechanism. Perhaps it’s neither them nor the deck, but simply his cerebellum, the slowing of his neurotram...neurotransit...neuro--

“Neurotranssitters,” Jim slurs by his ear, consonants blending together into a sort of lump of a word, tumbling off his tongue, still not quite correct, and Sherlock snorts and buries a laugh in Jim’s hair, because he hadn’t even noticed he was speaking out loud. Jim snickers into his neck, kisses him there once and then twice, and mumbles into his skin, “Very, very slow ones.”

“Is that why we’re spinning?”

Another kiss, this one under his ear, and it sends warm ripples through his bloodstream, through his skin. “Spinning ‘cause we’re waltzing.”

Because Jim said it, they abruptly are. Sherlock becomes aware again of Diabelli’s notes pouring from Jim’s chest - wait, that’s not right, not his chest, his phone, in his breast pocket, yes, that makes more sense - and of what his feet are doing. It’s...sort of waltzing. Not quite, in this position, but close. He lifts Jim’s hand and twirls him, earning a surprised laugh. Jim’s face is flushed, smiling, wicked with joy.

Smugly delighted, Sherlock observes, “James Moriarty, the happy drunk.”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” Jim says, switching their hands and taking over the lead. “We’re celebrating.”

He spins Sherlock into a dip, a surprise that makes Sherlock clutch at him and nearly knock them both over, makes them stare at each other, makes them simultaneously collapse into chuckles as their foreheads drop together. Jim kisses him and pulls him upright again, draping his arms around Sherlock’s neck, and they just sway together for a bit, carrying each other’s weight.

“One year,” Sherlock murmurs. One year since his very first murder, one year since one of the ‘agents’ escorting him to his cell tapped in Morse code into his arm, _When it happens, come with me,_ and a moment later the entire facility went dark. Since a warm hand grabbed his and tugged, and he followed.

One year since Jim Moriarty came back to life.

-

_He spends eight full seconds staring into the face of a ghost. James Moriarty looks back and lets him, one corner of his mouth curving up. “Did you miss me?”_

_In a primal, reptilian-hindbrain response that he will later compare with interest to his interactions with John, Sherlock bares his teeth and hits him as hard as he can._

_Moriarty stumbles a half-step and there is a shift of fabric and a cascade of cocked guns, but Moriarty loudly commands, “Let him!”_

_And he pushes back, scrapping and scuffling, laughing as Sherlock shoves his shoulders into the wall and beats bruises into his ribs. “I know, love,” he coughs, positively gleeful. He lets Sherlock grab him by the lapels and shove him back into the wall with a wordless roar as all of it - the anger at Magnussen and Mycroft and the world, the helplessness to gather up the threads of the life he had before, the bitter guilt of watching John get on without him, the unshakable mourning of someone who tried so hard to hurt him, but who did it so beautifully, who looked him in the eyes for one moment and saw him, saw him, and then pulled a trigger and ripped himself out of Sherlock’s life - crashes down from the walls of his palace, surging through the whole of him until it must escape, it must--_

_Moriarty does not blink when the rage morphs into despair, when his flying fists clench into the shoulders of his suit jacket and his head bows, when Sherlock’s breath betrays him in a body-wracking sob into his shoulder. The dead man holds him in his arms. “I know,” he says again, softly. “I know.”_

-

Jim retrieves another bottle from the bar and pours it for them, clinking his glass to Sherlock’s when he takes it. They’ve drunk quite a lot. They were already loose and flushed, snickering at nothing in particular except each other, when they disembarked from the jet. Sherlock hardly tastes it anymore, but the taste is hardly the point.

Jim is tactile when he’s sober; when he’s drunk, he soaks up touch like sunlight. Drunk, he smiles wide and wrinkles his nose when he laughs. His focus narrows from the million unique threads of his spiderweb to Sherlock alone. Sherlock understands; alcohol helps his brain to kindly shut up, muffling the warring observations of any given moment as though submerging them in water. Between the two of them, drunk like this, they could almost pass for real people.

It’s a misnomer, of course. They are the real people. The rest of them, out there in the world, are immaterial, not fully solid, simple and suggestible. Everything Sherlock always knew they were, but to whom he was once beholden nonetheless - subject to their etiquette, their expectations, their rules. A walled life, his few connections occasional breaths of clean air.

Jim’s hand slides along his cheek. “You’ve gone somewhere.”

Sherlock blinks slowly. Jim’s face comes back into focus. Different, now, than the mask that greeted him at London Swimming pool, different than the gray weariness that met him on the hospital roof. Warmer, now, happier, and more beautiful for it. Sherlock mirrors him, fitting his hand to his cheek, and Jim’s eyes briefly close, blissful. He kisses Sherlock’s palm, because he always does.

“I’m here,” Sherlock says.

-

_“Thank you for taking care of Magnussen,” Moriarty says after he has shooed his people away. There are not many places they can go, but the jet is of respectable size, and they vanish well enough, leaving their employer room to wander about the cabin. “He was on my list for a long while. You wouldn’t believe how many clients came in boo-hooing about him. ‘Please, Jim, will you fix it for me to get rid of my blackmailer? Pretty, pretty please?’” He shakes his head, dropping his voice from its mocking falsetto. “He protected himself well against people like me. Not to mention I had him on the back burner for a while. Distracted by a clever little detective who kept getting in my way.”_

_He smiles over at Sherlock, who is still a bit numb, a bit drained, after the initial tidal wave. Crouching in front of him, Moriarty studies his face, his own inscrutable. “And you just went and did it! Just walked right up and,” he fashions a gun out of his fingers and presses it to his own temple, mocking the sound of a gunshot with his mouth. When Sherlock flinches, too many memories converging too quickly, Moriarty lowers his hand, and his voice follows. “You were never more beautiful, you know.”_

_Sherlock does not know what to say to that, so he says nothing._

_Watching him closely, Moriarty asks, “How do you feel?”_

_Sherlock swallows. His throat is dry. Bitterly, because it's what he's meant to say, he answers,“Like a murderer.”_

_A blur and a crack and a “_ No, _” as Moriarty slaps him hard, stealing his breath. His chin is grabbed while he gasps it back in, and he is turned, eye contact forced. “Don’t do that, don’t you do that with me,” the dead man warns, mania glimmering behind his eyes. “I’m not them, and neither are you. I can read you, Sherlock Holmes. Don't ever lie to me. Name it.” He comes close, so close, all dilating pupils and cinnamon gum on his breath. He speaks slowly, each word its own monument. “_ How do you feel? _”_

_Sherlock’s cheek is growing hot. He looks between Moriarty’s eyes. Swallows hard. Whispers, because this is the sort of truth that must be whispered._

_“Satisfied.”_

_Moriarty nods minutely, holding his gaze. “Regrets?”_

_Another swallow, but confidence is stirring, stirring. “John’s involvement. My brother’s interference.”_

_“The bullet in a man’s brain?”_

_“No.”_

_Moriarty quietly lets out his breath. He drops his forehead an inch to meet Sherlock’s, stroking back Sherlock’s windblown hair. “Good.”_

_Sherlock huffs a bitter laugh. “No. A bit not good.”_

_“Is that what they say you are? When you tell the less pretty truths?”_

_Taking an unsteady breath, Sherlock nods, just a little, moving Moriarty a bit with him. “I’ve come to suspect,” he whispers, because this is a secret, no one he could tell until this moment, “that perhaps that is simply what I am. A bit not good,” he clips, rueful._

_The dead man shifts and kisses his forehead, his fingers still wrapped in his hair. Sherlock closes his eyes. A second kiss is pressed to his mouth, barely there and then barely gone, lingering close enough to share breath. Gently, achingly so, Moriarty asks, “Is that so bad?”_

_The machine behind Sherlock’s ribs seems to simultaneously break and mend. This, this, is what he has been lacking for too long now. What he nearly touched on the hospital rooftop, what was stolen from him before his eyes, what has nearly driven him mad with yearning since. To be understood. To be seen, truly_ seen _, and not found wanting._

_His hand molds slowly to the dead man’s jaw, and Moriarty turns to press a kiss into his palm as naturally as if he’s done it all his life. He is solid. He is warm. He is alive._

_“How are you here?” Sherlock whispers._

_Gently rubbing his scalp, Moriarty murmurs, “Do you really want me to tell you?”_

_“Will you?”_

_Moriarty considers him. “Maybe,” he says slowly, his eyes lowering to Sherlock's mouth. “Right now, I think I’d rather kiss you.” He brushes a thumb along Sherlock’s temple. “Do you mind?”_

_In lieu of an answer, Sherlock pulls him forward and firmly meets his lips, earning a low sound from the back of Moriarty’s throat and a tightening grip in his hair. He immerses himself, running his hands over as much of him as he can reach, latching onto the pulse point in his neck to feel the accelerating rhythm, the proof, grazing the skin with his teeth, tasting the fact of him, mouthing at the spot until the skin is red and damp and Moriarty is moaning quietly on every exhale, laughing shakily when Sherlock pulls back._

_He soothes Sherlock’s scalp with his fingertips, catching his mouth once more before putting a sliver of space between them. “You do have options,” Moriarty murmurs, stroking and stroking, the motion hypnotic. “I’ll take you back. If you ask me. Weave a tale about where you’ve been, let big brother send you to off to die.” Another kiss, keeping Sherlock’s stomach from churning too badly at the thought. “I’ll take you back. Or,” he brushes a lank curl from Sherlock’s forehead, “I’ll take you with me.”_

_“And then what?”_

_“Oh, love,” Moriarty breathes, holding Sherlock’s face so gently in his hands. “We make the world ours.”_

-

They finally succumb to their confounded cerebella and lie down, twined together underneath Jim’s stars. They made an agreement, once, when they were feeling whimsical (and quite overtired), about this world of theirs. Sherlock, once-aspiring pirate and digger into the depths of things, gets the sea. Jim, with his philosopher’s-heart and his path of perpetual ascent, gets the sky. The earth, and all the strange little people who inhabit it, they share.

Jim spares a glance up, checking on his stars, then molds himself to Sherlock’s side, heavy and relaxed. Sherlock wraps an arm around his shoulders and keeps an eye on the skies for him. Jim starts to hum a familiar Bach, his muscles relaxed enough that the sound is mostly breath, and Sherlock goes with him, pressing the mostly-correct points on an invisible violin fingerboard along Jim’s spine. They do nothing more than that, Jim providing the melody and Sherlock providing the means to it, for a long while.

“S’your turn to choose,” Jim mumbles into his neck after they’ve gone quiet and still. Sherlock makes some acknowledging sound, he thinks. They have been trading off the duty of choosing locations, clients, courses of action. “Unless you’d like a holiday. We could go on holiday.”

Sherlock smiles. “We’re always on holiday.”

Jim makes a rude sound. “Work holidays don’t count. A proper holiday. Celebrate our annivers’ry.”

His voice is growing increasingly Irish, and Sherlock presses a fond, uncoordinated kiss to the top of his head for it. “Where? Been nearly everywhere Mycroft can’t find us.”

“Not everywhere.” Jim is fiddling with Sherlock’s shirt collar, pressing a wet kiss to his skin just above where the fabric parts. “Y’could come home with me.”

Sherlock blinks at the sky. “Home?”

“Mm-hm.” The next button down is undone with clumsy fingers, his collar parted a bit more, another kiss given. “Bought it ages ago, after parents were out the way. S’empty, just caretakers. No cameras. Can be ready by the time we get there, s’just a phone call.”

“Your childhood home,” Sherlock repeats, and Jim confirms with another sound while he works free the third button.

“Can show you the cliffs and the caves,” Jim murmurs. “All the little hidden places.” The button is freed, and he’s kissed just below his sternum. “Wake in the morning and open the window, and you can hear the sea.”

Sherlock smiles at Jim’s sky. “Could do with a holiday.”

“Could do,” Jim agrees, working his way down Sherlock’s body now, undoing another button and pressing a kiss to his stomach, and Sherlock closes his eyes, searching with a hand until he can tangle his fingers in Jim’s hair.

They will not talk of it any more tonight, but tomorrow, Sherlock vows, he will ask Jim to make a phone call to Ireland.

-

_He hesitates only for a moment. His options spread before him in his mind’s eye, but he does not need them to. He knows._

_Two hours ago, swathed in disguise, Jim Moriarty took his hand, and they ran. He pulled Sherlock bodily away from a life that had never quite fit, never been quite complete. Now Jim Moriarty sits before him, waiting patiently for his answer._

_He takes Jim’s hand._

_They fly._


End file.
